Corporation Inc

If you've always fancied yourself as a bit of a captain of industry type but could never persuade those pesky venture capitalists to part with their wodges of cash to get you going on that million dollar idea, then you are in luck. Equally, if you're yearning to unleash you inner megalomaniacal empire builder, have we got a treat for you!

Armor Games's head of development John Cooney (or jmtb02, as he better known) has come up with the perfect game for you. Corporation Inc lets you indulge both your entrepreneurial go-getter side and your ruthless, slave-driving god of capitalism side.

I've always been a fan of real-time strategy games and this takes me back to Mega-Lo-Mania or SimCity. And thankfully, there's no boring old resource management to slow down your rise to power.

Corporation Inc

The more money you earn, the bigger the tower you can build. The bigger the tower, the more money you can earn.

Corporation Inc also does away with superfluous twaddle like a story, missions or levels - the only real aim of the game is to make loadsa money so you can build up your empire and make loads more. From humble beginnings (an empty field, it doesn't get much more humble than that) you can set up a basic office and hire some workers to punch buttons to generate a little cash.

It's tempting in the early stages to crank up the building and hiring, but failing to pace yourself properly will result in the bank balance running dry and your dreams of world domination going the way of the Sinclair C5. Patience pays off, though, because once you've got a few floors of rat racers rat racing, you'll soon find your options open up.

In addition to your basic worker, there's a number of specialists who are all essential to keeping things ticking over - IT technicians will fix computers and lights, janitors take out the rubbish while the workforce are at home and supervisors will quite literally whip your new recruits into shape. There are also researchers, who will unlock new features, accountants to boost the value of staff's output and HR people, who do whatever HR people do.

This is where the game really takes off - making as much moola as possible means your ever-growing tower must develop a delicate, balanced ecosystem. For example, if you don't have enough janitors to tidy up at the end of the day, your staff will get in a huff about the state of their workspace and you'll make less money.

Corporation Inc

Eventually your office will be a hive of productivity like this.

The building itself also brings its own challenges and solutions - your desk jockeys will be grumpy if they're sat too close to a noisy elevator shaft, but a strategically placed pot plant or water cooler will distract them from their misery just long enough to keep them earning lots of lovely money.

As your researchers make progress, you'll be able to add bathrooms, a cafeteria and a gym too to make sure your minions need never leave the confines of your corporate compound - which means more cash! Later, you can upgrade your basic offices to make staff more productive, or create specialist areas for your various accountants, HR peeps and IT techs. Although these guys can work anywhere, having them in a tailor-made workspace will make them that much more effective.

By this stage, you'll be enjoying the immensely satisfying sight of having an army of servants filing in each morning to toil endlessly (well, until about fiveish) on your behalf.

Corporation Inc

If you play it right, you can get your employees to work into the night.

However, like any empire-building game (or indeed any empire) you eventually find yourself in danger of becoming overstretched and this is where the lack of a mass management system can make gameplay a little cumbersome. Being able to order one class of staff to do the same thing all at once would be very helpful, as would the ability to have people swap desks.

Your screen can also become a little cluttered with boxes showing the status of infrastructure, workers or goals achieved, which can leave you frustratingly flicking between screens you don't really want. But really these are fairly minor quibbles - and there's so much to enjoy about Corporation Inc that you soon forget about them.

The attention to detail, for example, is excellent. Every employee has their own name, profile and emotions (as well as their own pretty quirky look) and you can even unlock individual cats (yes, cats!) by reaching recruitment milestones.

All-in-all, a thoroughly fun game that you can take as far as your monstrous desire for money and power will allow. Feed your inner master of the universe by playing Corporation Inc here.